Posts for Samsara

1 2
21 22 23
107 108
Posted: 5/4/2021 6:29 AM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
I'll skip further research/confirmation stuff and answer the unasked question directly: We are not considering evaluation rating as part of full completion under any circumstances. Like I said, it only serves a single purpose, and that's to give you the bad ending if you bottom it out at 0. "Maximizing" it does literally nothing except give you a little extra room to keep some artifacts or characters during the game itself, rather than getting them back at the end of the game. It's literally just like a healthbar. Reaches 0? Game over. Literally any other time? Just make sure it doesn't reach 0. As someone familiar with the game, my definition for "full completion" would be getting all story-available characters and completing all possible dungeons in Hard mode, in a single playthrough, while getting the A ending. Anything on top of that would just be arbitrary due to the complexity of the game itself. Requiring all dungeons is essentially doubling the length of the run by requiring a second playthrough of a game with at least 2 hours of unskippable cutscenes. Requiring the TASer to keep all artifacts/characters is impossible as it would cause a game over, plus characters are returned at the end of the game, plus sending up a character is required for the A ending anyway. I think all artifacts can be kept as long as you're keeping up on sending up good characters, but I imagine the artifacts would just be used/transmuted/sent up equipped on characters anyway.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 5/4/2021 4:56 AM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
It's displayed in the menu, and I believe it's capped at 100 (which is also where it starts).
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 5/3/2021 11:16 PM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
An "arbitrary goal" on TASvideos defines the submission, not the goal itself. We only rarely get submissions where the goal itself is actually arbitrary: "One glitch", "human theory", things like that where the actual goal is prone to subjective change and thus can't be concretely defined. I understand the confusion, it's happened to people before, but I genuinely don't know how to redefine it without just using the word "arbitrary". As long as people are aware that it defines the publishability of the category and not the goal of the category, it makes perfect sense. Think of it this way: When a run is stated to be arbitrary on TASvideos, 99% of the time that is in reference to the other published runs on the site. Say we have a published any% run for a game that takes damage three times because it's a few frames faster to do so: A "no damage" run of the same game would likely be considered arbitrary, as it would only be a few frames slower while being almost entirely the same as the published run. For new branches, we want minimal content overlap, i.e every published run of a game should be significantly different enough so that people never feel like they're watching the same run twice. If taking damage is significantly faster than carefully taking the time to avoid it, then a damageless run could be acceptable due to requiring a lot more planning and strategy. Trust me, I have my own issues with this run being published, but none of them are on us as site staff. adelikat was completely in the right to accept this. Judges follow the will of the audience when it comes to entertainment-based decisions. The audience wanted this accepted, so it was accepted. The audience wanted every other published SMB1 run accepted, so they were also accepted. That's the nature of how the site works. The system inherently favors popular games while leaving thousands of others out to dry. Plenty of people check the site every day, plenty of people are active, but almost none of them actually pay attention to every workbench submission. Some submissions are lucky to even get 5 votes. Some don't even get posts in the thread. The oldest submission on the workbench, from January, falls under both of those categories! Ultimately, we can't just ask people to stop being biased towards SMB1, and we can't just reject runs for having "too much SMB1 already" because "too much SMB1" is something that our audience decides in the first place. Feedback (and the general lack thereof for games that aren't about plumbers) is an issue that definitely needs to be addressed, but it needs to be addressed site-wide and not buried deep in a submission thread for a submission that got way more feedback than 6000-7000 others did.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 5/3/2021 12:57 PM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
feos wrote:
How many potential full completion requirements will be met if you just maximize your evaluation rating? Does it have a known limit too?
There's no benefit or anything to maxing it, the only purpose it serves is to give you the C ending if it hits 0. It's really not much different to a normal healthbar in that regard.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 5/3/2021 1:11 AM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
feos wrote:
As for future full completion definition, simply playing all dungeons available in hard mode feels weird. Because how would you call it? "Most dungeons"? Playing all dungeons at least makes sure it really plays them all, even if it's 2 playthroughs.
My main issue with that is that it kills pacing and entertainment value by requiring another 2 full hours of cutscenes just to play a single extra dungeon. It would essentially be tacking this submission onto the end of a 4-ish hour run.
As for items and chars, I'd need more details on how they work, how you know you have some of them collected right now, and what sending to Valhalla means, and what the effect is.
Each dungeon has a couple unique items (artifacts) as completion rewards. When receiving these artifacts, you are given the choice to either keep them, or tribute them to Odin (i.e, send to Valhalla). Tributing artifacts will raise your Evaluation Rating, which basically a measure of how loyal of a valkyrie Lenneth is being. Keeping these items lowers your Evaluation Rating, since, y'know, bad valkyries are selfish, or something. If your Evaluation Rating drops to 0, you receive the worst ending: C. This can happen at any point during the game. It's the same sort of thing with characters: The job of a valkyrie is to bring dead warriors to Valhalla, so that's what you're given the option to do in each chapter of the game. Sending characters to Valhalla effectively removes them from use for most, potentially all of the game. The more of the in-game requirements characters meet when they're sent up, the more Evaluation Rating you get, and the better chance you'll have at getting them back. Not doing this will absolutely tank your Evaluation Rating. For the A ending, one specific character is required to be sent up and survive. Contrary to what I initially believed, it may be possible to keep every artifact just by sending up characters good enough to keep Evaluation above 0, and by extension these characters can be "kept" as long as they survive in Valhalla. Perhaps the RTA 100% runs are already doing that, I have yet to find the time to sit down and watch one in full. Basically, VP is super complicated, I don't know how we can adapt our current rules to what it does. It might actually just be easier to send this to Moons and see if a proper full completion run comes along in the future. Hell, I could even be the one who makes it.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 5/2/2021 10:31 PM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
feos wrote:
Is there any easy way to check whether some completion criterion has been satisfied? For example, for anything that's decided to be (or not to be) a part of full completion, if it's displayed somewhere in the game or acknowledged in-game in some other way, it's a more clear criterion than things you need to just know where they are, how many of them is there, and whether or not they have been completed, by comparing the movie with guides.
There's no in-game acknowledgement of completion percentage. It could end up being the same as what I decided for Tomb Raider "all secrets", where I felt that only secrets were required for full completion due to them being the only stated finite collectable per level. I think my main issue with categorizing this submission is that accepting it would probably require either some sort of weird re-imagining of the rules to accept it to Vault, or a sudden uptick in voting and feedback to push it comfortably up to Moons and not have to worry about rule weirdness or obsoletion chains. This isn't a fastest completion run because of the save glitch run, which debug menus its way to this same ending. I'd hesitate to call it full completion because there's so much gameplay skipped. If we were talking, say, a run that does 17 out of 20 dungeons and skips 3 instead of this run that does 3 out of 20 dungeons and skips 17, it would be much easier to claim full completion in that case, but the nature of the game itself kinda makes it impossible to really define what full completion should be. My opinion's more or less been the same as ViGadeomes', where a "full completion" playthrough would require maximizing whatever is possible in a single playthrough. I'd even say that potential run has a high chance of making Moons, thus not having to even worry about the nature of full completion. I think what I really want to know is what would happen if that potential run were to actually exist. Would it be considered a more suitable full completion run and thus obsolete this one? If so, can we publish this run as full completion at all? If the "fuller" run doesn't obsolete this one, then how do we classify this one to begin with, since fastest completion is already taken care of? ...This is why audience feedback is so important. A few more Yes votes and a couple more positive posts and this run would have been published already, and that potential "maximum completion" run would just swiftly obsolete it on both content overlap and entertainment.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 5/2/2021 9:19 PM
Post subject: Re: What is wrong with the site management?
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
Masterjun wrote:
Is this a joke? [...] Yes, it definitely is.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 5/2/2021 12:36 PM
Post subject: Re: warning, heavy text ahead!
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
Mazzin wrote:
arukAdo rushed a dirty ass TAS using the new stuff and that shitty thing got accepted just because of KC version, even when it was way worse than my rejected run...
and again sorry if i accidentally insulted anyone with anything, i didn't mean to.
Y'know what, I'm done. I don't think you've accidentally insulted anyone here, it seems more like you've very much intentionally done so in every post you've made in every submission you've given us. Between the stubbornness, the bullshit, the hypocrisy, the complete lack of understanding, the egotistical rambling, the passive-aggression, the complete dismissal of the site, and the lowkey threats, I've already made my decision on the fate of your run.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 5/1/2021 10:02 PM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
So, there needs to be a bit of a discussion about the category and whether or not this run can be Vaulted. "Best ending" runs can be considered full completion of a game under certain circumstances, but Valkyrie Profile is a bit weird. The way Valkyrie Profile was designed, there is no possible way of attaining actual full completion in a single playthrough. Dungeons, of which there are many unseen in this run, are locked by difficulty (this run was done on Hard, which has MOST dungeons unlocked, but there is still one that is only available on Easy/Normal). Not all characters and unique items can be kept, as the central mechanic of the game is literally sending characters and unique items to Valhalla. The problem I personally have with considering this run full completion is how much of the game's content is skipped. There's something like 20 available dungeons, of which only 3 are completed, and I'd hesitate to call the final one a fun and exciting dungeon in and of itself. I'd conservatively estimate that an "all available dungeons" version of this run would be about 4 hours long, but that extra time would be all gameplay and evenly spread out over the course of the run. I could see it easily making Moons, actually. And that's kind of the problem. We need a clear consensus on full completion for this game in order to figure out what to do with this run. As per the rules, this technically qualifies for Vault, as it achieves the game's only "full completion" metric possible on a single playthrough, but as per the extreme amount of skipped content, accepting this would mean having to deal with a potential future "max completion" run or something, a run that collects as much as possible and completes as much content as possible. Would that run obsolete this one if this one was accepted, or would we consider them separate categories? If that run would obsolete this one, can we even accept this one? I'd like a few peoples' opinions on this before I make a decision. Feel free to ask questions. I'm pretty familiar with the game so I should be able to clarify.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 5/1/2021 9:12 PM
Post subject: Re: what is tasvideos.org ?!
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
feos wrote:
an improvement means some trick has been found that could be applied to the old TAS and make it faster.
The trick that was found was a lag reduction trick, which means it wouldn't necessarily be able to be applied to the published run. It's kinda hard to reduce lag that isn't there to begin with.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 5/1/2021 12:09 AM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
Mazzin wrote:
if you are serious about that, then you are clearly missing the point of this entire game, because the main goal of any speedrun in this game is almost completely based on lag reduction. that is also why i don't really understand why anyone is still defending the KC version since there is less lag that can be reduced... (meaning he whole objective is just more limited, but whatever).
Here's a fun question: Why doesn't the version choice count as lag reduction to you? It's the active choice of an official release of the game that lags significantly less than other versions. To us, a site that caters to as many games as possible and not just this one, this is the absolute best that someone can do with lag reduction. Choosing a version that lags MORE only to go ahead and try to reduce lag as much as possible makes no sense to us, because you could have just chosen the version that lags much less to begin with. Certainly you're entitled to your opinion as to which is the preferred version, but we're also entitled to our opinions in turn. That's why it's your job to convince us. If literally anyone else had submitted this exact same run, we'd have asked the same thing of them. Hell, I could have submitted this run and I'd rightfully be asked why I think it should be published. There is absolutely no personal bias at play here except you being extremely biased against us. There's definitely no bias towards arukAdo, for the record: He submitted a run that ended up getting rejected twice over and actually left the site over it due to (wrongfully) thinking we were biased against him. If you think it's bias against you, it doesn't help that you've been nothing but belligerent, condescending, insulting, dismissive, and even threatening with your first post in this thread. If you somehow can't see the correlation between your negative behavior and the negative reaction you're getting, then I don't know what to say other than take some time to figure out what self-awareness is and come back when you've improved as a person. Worked for me at least.
and you should rather ask the other way around, why did aruk despawn that eyeball?
I mean, from my perspective, despawning that eyeball means you don't have to deal with the lag, and you don't have waste time to turn around and whip it, so I imagine there would have to be a very good reason to not do it in your run. Just saying "I did it better" is nowhere near enough.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 4/30/2021 9:12 PM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
Requesting a delay on the submission while xipo and I re-investigate the movie for further improvements. There will be a new full encode when we're finished. EDIT: Submission, text, and encode updated with the new file.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 4/30/2021 3:12 AM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
Actually, yes, a proper breakdown of all the tricks used would be lovely, especially since there seem to be new ones. The more information you can provide, the easier it'll be to judge fairly. Are there more improvements over the published run? Are there version-exclusive tricks in your run that the published run can't have? On top of all that, is there an objective reason we should prefer this version of the game that isn't just "I think this version is better"? Anything you can explain will help, but I really want a breakdown between this run and the published run more than anything given what Nach said in the judgement of your previous submission.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 4/30/2021 2:41 AM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
Well, according to the judgement of the previous submission...
Nach wrote:
The first question that comes to mind is whether this version should be published alongside the CGB version, as the game is practically identical. I'm not aware of any significant game-play differences that would normally allow for side by side publications, such as different enemies, movement mechanics, weapons/power-ups, or that sort of thing. I have not seen any strong arguments why this version should also be published.
I suggest you explain why this should either be published alongside or obsolete the currently published run of this game if you don't want to be rejected again.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 4/28/2021 12:38 PM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
And you're perfectly in the right to do that. Like I said, this run is very well made and you should definitely be proud of it! The only "problem" is the hack choice, which doesn't even make you to blame since it's impossible to know how the audience will react without showing them anything. If you're still interested in hard games and SMB3 hacks, maybe you could look into improving Kaizo Mario Bros 3?
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 4/27/2021 10:07 PM
(Edited: 4/28/2021 9:22 AM)
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
Viewer wrote:
If you're saying you're depressed to try and deflect criticism, GROW THE F*CK UP.
You'd think someone who suffers from depression would know better than to take this kind of tone in this situation. RN22 is being receptive to the feedback, he's just responding in PMs rather than publicly in the thread. It's likely that the line about depression was just a kneejerk reaction to the confusion over the first submission, and I'll even admit I was harsher than I should have been over there. Even if the rest of your post is relatively decent advice (although it is extremely hard for some people to just go out and get help, and saying usually comes off as dismissive more than anything else), throwing in that line kinda undoes all that, because it's basically saying "I don't trust you, I think you're faking", which, as someone else who suffers from it, the last thing I want to hear is that someone thinks I might be faking it for attention or pity. I heard that for years. I'm still recovering. Since it looks like the depression thing is the only thing people are going to focus on about this run, I think I'll just handle it now and try to respectfully ask that any future posts in this thread actually be related to the TAS or TASing in general.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 4/27/2021 6:51 AM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
Acumenium wrote:
I'm not suggesting to change the rules---especially for this hack which I do not feel strongly enough about to be fighting for it like that, but why are rules so strict for hacks? Is it a server space issue?
It's a quality control thing at this point. Allowing hacks in Vault would be saying "We accept all hacks", and accepting all hacks is a surefire way of killing the audience through repetition. Even if we kept turning away aesthetic hacks and translation patches, there are tons of low quality level hacks out there that could be accepted to Vault, so entertainment needs to be a metric in order to prevent that potential spam. I admit it sounds strict and occasionally is, but the system actually works fairly well in practice. It's directly asking the audience what they want to see published, and if they want to see it published, it will be. If they don't, it won't. It's not a perfect system, it tends to break on edge case hacks like this, but I feel that developing a new system would take a lot of effort and add a lot of complication for everyone while only bringing a small amount of positive change, if any at all.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 4/26/2021 11:05 PM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
Posting is far more important than just voting when it comes to gauging feedback. So far there's only been three pieces of feedback: 1. "This hack isn't too special, but I voted yes" 2. "I don't see the appeal of hacks like this, but I voted yes" 3. "Kaizo Mario Bros 3 is the better speedgame, but I voted yes" Even if the voting was a little more in the run's favor, that kind of feedback doesn't scream "acceptable" to me. I'll even say that the Meh vote is me, and upon rewatching, it really should have been a No. The run's very well done, but I don't personally find any entertainment in watching TASes of hacks meant specifically for RTA frustration. It removes the point of the hack, you know that it's going to be beaten and it's going to be beaten fast, so there's nothing shocking about it. As a general rule, I'm only confident on a Moon tier/hack acceptance decision if there's a fairly high number of votes (10+, ideally 15+), if the ratio is around 80-85% at minimum, and if there's a good number of posts in the thread that in and of themselves are confidently entertained without needing to add modifiers as to why they voted Yes. Tier judging is the worst part of being a Judge, legitimately. Not a lot of people vote to begin with, let alone post in the thread to back up that vote. Lower ratios would almost certainly be acceptable if there was more voting/posting in general, but given that a good number of submissions don't even get 10 votes or even 3 thread posts, we sort of have to take it on faith most of the time and assume things like "no feedback = no interest = Vault the run or reject the hack". If more people interacted with submissions, not only would tiering be more accurate, but our lives would be much easier in turn.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 4/26/2021 7:43 PM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
I had "Hell yeah for new Publishers! Welcome to the team!" written out but that's literally word-for-word what I wrote for Zin last year, so, uh,
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 4/25/2021 8:24 AM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
You can play it back within TAStudio using the controls above the checkboxes, set Markers on specific frames so you can jump back to them whenever you want, click in the box to the left of a frame number to jump to that specific frame... TAStudio's pretty intuitive once you get the hang of it, but there are tutorials on the forums that can also help you out if you need it.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 4/25/2021 8:09 AM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
Uncheck "Recording Mode" in TAStudio, that's for recording live input instead of painting it in. When you have that disabled, it won't delete your input on playback.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 4/24/2021 9:25 PM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
The input really needs to be cleaned up and tightened. You're losing several seconds that could easily be saved by just figuring out exactly when the first possible frame to do things is. The input in menus is pretty much all random mashing, losing frames everywhere. The main strategy used in 9-ball rounds can be tightened up by about 10 frames every time just by utilizing diagonals more and shooting faster. Cutscenes can be skipped with the C button, which isn't always used. Input in 8-ball rounds looks noticeably suboptimal and likely could be optimized by several seconds even using the same strategies, which I doubt is optimal in and of itself. That part's not even your fault, pool is complicated to optimize and is usually botted instead of being done by hand. User movie #71008889489639367 I tweaked your input up through the first couple shots of the second match, and it's about 6 seconds faster. I imagine that doing this to the entire submission could bring it down to sub-9 minutes. Laziness should never be an excuse in TASing, the entire point is that you have all the time in the world to optimize your run, an infinite number of tries to ensure that everything is as fast as possible. You need to use that time and those infinite tries to the best of your ability.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 4/22/2021 5:26 PM
Post subject: Re: Judging Dispute?
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
GamesFan2000 wrote:
I'm a little bit confused about the judging situation regarding this TAS. This was claimed almost immediately by one of the senior judges, but then it reverted to being unclaimed a couple days ago, and now adelikat has claimed it. No pressure, but what happened?
It's nothing malicious or hostile, we just ended up having a lot of other submissions come in since then, so I decided I'd rather focus on keeping the workbench moving than dedicate all of my time to a difficult judgement. I'm flattered at being called a senior though c: maybe we should make that a reality
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 4/21/2021 9:06 PM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
So, we had a discussion about this in staff chat and came to a few interesting conclusions regarding the game. Much like Decathlon, the "end state" of the game (the 1st place trophy) happens no matter what you do. The game is essentially designed to be multiplayer, so if you're playing single player, you're always going to come in first, since you're the only contestant. Under our rules:
If a game shows the same ending screen regardless of success or failure, reaching it is not considered successful completion.
This means that the "all failures" run shouldn't count as "fastest completion" for this game, as the trophy screen is guaranteed no matter what happens in the actual gameplay, so we need to define a different point of completion for this game to justify having an any% run. For Decathlon, this was maximum score, in that there could only BE maximum score as a point of completion for Decathlon. California Games has something else, though: The predefined high scores give a basic goal for the game, one that can be reached in a fastest time. As far as I'm concerned at least, this is fine for any%. "Completion" shouldn't necessarily mean having to max out the score unless that is the only possible goal for the game. There's an art in figuring out how to get the bare minimum as well, finding the right combinations of scored points to surpass the pre-defined total and "end your run" in the fastest time possible, which also sets it apart from a run that focuses on maximum score. The only event that has to be run out no matter what is Footbag, and as far as I can tell from watching the run and reading the submission text, it's likely that a maximum score version of this event would have a different "points route", so to speak. The scores are also not saved, which in a way means that every time you turn on the game, you regain the goal to beat the high scores, as opposed to it being a one-time goal that leads into an infinite time "improve yourself" goal. Had the game included a battery save for high scores, it would be more believable that maximum score is the only intended goal as opposed to being the maximum achievable goal. Whether or not maximum score would obsolete this or be published alongside it is still up for debate (it would likely take a max score submission to decide that definitively), but I do think this run can definitely be published as fastest completion either way, as it completes the single quantifiable objective set out by the game ("beat these high scores") in the fastest possible time.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Posted: 4/21/2021 2:41 AM
Quote
Samsara
She/They
Experienced Forum User, Published Author, Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2121)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2793
Location: Northern California
Homebrew TAS of 2023 Exotic platforms TAS of 2020 Sega TAS of 2016
Help. Please don't give negative comments on this. I am depressed. srsly
I'm trying to help. No offense, but your submission text reads like a troll post, even more so now with this most recent addition. It tells us nothing about the run when we need to understand exactly what it is to be able to judge it. You can't just say things like "Are you blind? Watch the run!" and "BizHawk sucks!" and expect us to have all the information we need. Are you competing with Meerkov's run? Because by all metrics, his is faster than yours overall (trimmed down to final input needed to reach credits, this run is something like 12:28.xx). If your run is 100%, then why are you comparing it to Meerkov's any% run in the first place? They'd be separate categories, not meant to be directly compared. You say that there's something he didn't do during the final boss that you did: What exactly is it? Both runs reach the credits, so I wouldn't have any idea what the difference is that somehow makes his run illegitimate in your eyes. Seriously, we need any kind of information at all. The more you can give, the better.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 | Cohost
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
1 2
21 22 23
107 108